What are the downsides of CBL?
- For both learners and teachers, CBL requires a heavier time commitment than more traditional teaching-learning activities.
- The model requires teachers to guide learners in classroom discussion while giving up part of their usual control, sometimes allowing learners to make errors that they can uncover for themselves later.
- There may be concerns, too, that learners will select topics about which the teacher knows little or that learners might choose to use technologies that go beyond the teacher’s expertise.
It can also be tricky to integrate core competencies of a course/lesson into the content of the chosen project.
Add to these difficulties the need to shepherd learners successfully through interaction with community members, and demands on a teacher can be substantial.
Moreover, traditional methods of assessment might prove inappropriate for measuring what learners learn in a challenge-based project.